Mapping the world via cellphones

opensignal.com

11 points·JamesCRR··4 comments

I'd rather use a service that gives the data back to the community, such as openBmap and openCellId - they both publish the whole database under a open database license.

(disclosure I'm James Robinson, CTO at OpenSignal) openBmap and openCellId are both great projects, I also recommend Wigle.net

We don't consider ourselves competing with these companies, although we collect similar data. Our business model is to collect data, use it to provide analysis that can help carriers improve their networks and from that revenue stream continually improve this project, while always being committed to providing free and independent coverage maps. Our competitors in this space are Rootmetrics and Sensorly, and we're trying to be as open as possible within this space: we have a free API (network rank) and we share data with academics as well.

I love the opensource model, but it's not the route we've taken with this project, that said this is a project undergoing continuous development and if we can do it without undercutting our business model we will release more and more data.

Very cool new data, but what in the world does an engraved Gurkha sword have to do with weather pressure? I think a little more detail would have been helpful there.

Good question. That was the prize for winning CrowdHack that year - way back in 2011.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com